Lady Snowblood (1973)

IMDb plot summary: A young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.

Directed by Toshiya Fujita. Stars Meiko Kaji, Toshio Kurosawa, and Masaaki Daimon.

Lady Snowblood is a Japanese film about a woman whose mother is brutalized by a group of men and then dies in childbirth. She bestows on her daughter the destiny of avenging her death by killing all these men. This film was a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill duology, and it's extremely evident watching this. The visuals are striking in very similar ways, especially the shots juxtaposing the white and red of the titular snow and blood. The plot itself becomes surprisingly convoluted given the character's singular mission, and that sometimes feels out of place in the final third. Because of all that, I find it compelling visually but not particularly in its story or characters. Worth a watch, but I'm not going to return to it any time soon.

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Lady Snowblood (1973)

📊 Ranked #2146/4298 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 51

beat The Ghost and the Darkness (#2159 → #2154)

lost to Long Day's Journey Into Night (#1082 → #1080)

lost to Garbo Talks (#1618 → #1619)

lost to The Age of Adaline (#1884 → #1623)

lost to Rachel, Rachel (#2019 → #1858)

beat The Road (#2084 → #2078)

beat Scarface (#2051 → #2369)

beat The Three Faces of Eve (#2035 → #2224)

beat Aladdin (held at #2027)

lost to Rebecca (#2023 → #2020)

lost to Onibaba (#2025 → #2024)

beat The Importance of Being Earnest (#2026 → #2147)